#John Leonard (critic)

[moviecriticseanpatrick-blog]

#Leonard Cohen #Hallelujah #Death of a Ladies Man #Music #Song #Documentary #movies #film #movie review #movie #film review #movie critic #film critic #film criticism #movie criticism #documentary #Jeff Buckley #John Cale #john cale

[linusjf]

John Leonard: Hand to hold

“In the cellars of the night, when the mind starts moving around old trunks of bad times, the pain of this and the shame of that, the memory of a small boldness is a hand to hold.” —John Leonard, critic (1939-2008).

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#critic #John Leonard #John Leonard (critic)

[craigfernandez]

#The Five Wounds #Kirstin Valdez Quade #National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize

[lol-jackles]

I agree with your opinions for the most part. But there are still some points of contradiction. For example, if Jared left the show, the spn wouldn't last much without him. If you exclude the bias towards Jensen and Misha, with a proper plot, the series could very well exist. Like making a move with Sam finally finding peace, leaving hunting and starting a family. Dean is happy for him and continues to do what he loves and knows well - hunt monsters and protect people and that includes Sam and his new family. Just if you take the concept that Sam(Jared) is the main character and the story is about him and Dean(Jensen) is secondary and the story can't be without a main character, then what about The Big Bang Theory series? Obviously Leonard is the main character and Sheldon is secondary. But when James Parsons wanted to leave the show(several times) it wasn't allowed? Why? Sheldon is not the main character, neither is Dean, BUT they are both audience favorites. Suppose if the situation was the other way around and Jensen was the one who wanted to leave the spn, the show wouldn't make sense either? Just based on your logic, the main character leaving is a failure for the show. That said, the departure of the same James Parsons would be a big blow to the show. His character even got his own series in the end. Maybe that's what Jensen wanted. And then I don't understand why he didn't just do a series about John when Meri died and he was left alone with kids and monsters. That would have been so much more interesting!

I think I may be misinterpreting "bias towards Jensen and Misha", as in my bias or the show's bias? If the latter then put down that non-canon-compliant fanfiction and slowly step away.

The Big Bang Theory worked with Leonard as the lead until he and Penny got married, which ideally was when the show should have ended because the show started with him pining after Penny. But the show continued for 2 more seasons with the focused moved to Sheldon & Amy and it was very noticeable that the original magic was gone and the show was cancelled shortly after. The ratings in viewership and demo for the last 2 seasons were steadily going down.

I've said many times here that when shows lose their leads, they are either cancelled or limp along for 1 or 2 more seasons (X Files, The Office, Scrubs, 70's show, The OC) but then fans and critics complain that the show got way worse. So even though The Big Bang Theory still had their lead Leonard on the show, moving the focus to Sheldon & Amy still resulted in the show's cancellation 2 years later.

Moving SPN's focus from Sam to Dean & Cas would have had the same result, cancellation in one or two seasons. So the "proper plot" you speak off wouldn't save a Sam-less show. WB knew that and that's why they cancelled Supernatural.

If it was Jensen who left SPN back in season 3 or 4, the show still would have continued to season 5 to reach syndication. During that time the role of Sam's new partner would have been casted and if he or she worked well enough with Jared, then the show could have continued after season 5. Shows that lost their main secondary character have successfully continued for several more seasons: Monk, Cheers, Greys Anatomy, Law&Order:SUV, and of course Walker. NYPD Blues' Andy famously went through 4 partners in 12 seasons, each partner just as popular as the last.

I agree that the Supernatural prequel should have been about a widowed John and wee Sam and Dean. That was Michael Rosenbaum’s immediate assumption on his podcast interview with Jensen. He missed a real opportunity for a young Sam and Dean prequel because nostalgia for the 80s is at an all time high. It could have been his version of Stranger Things as wee Sam and Dean explore the strange and the supernatural, like Sam’s imaginary friend Sully and we get to know more about the Zannas, the only supernatural creatures without agendas against mankind.

#supernatural #what if

[newyorkthegoldenage]

Above: Jerome Robbins, John Kriza, Harold Lang, Janet Reed, and Muriel Bentley in the original production of Robbins's Fancy Free. Photo: Maurice Seymour via Newsweek

On April 18, 1944, Jerome Robbins's first ballet, Fancy Free, premiered at the Metropolitan Opera House.

From the moment the action begins, with the sound of a juke box wailing behind the curtain, the ballet is strictly young wartime America, 1944. The curtain rises on a street corner with a lamp post, a side street bar, and New York skyscrapers pricked out with the crazy pattern of lights, making a dizzying backdrop. Three sailors explode onto the stage. They are on 24-hour shore leave in the city and on the prowl for girls. The tale of how they meet first one, then a second girl, and how they fight over them, lose them, and in the end take off after still a third, is the story of the ballet.

That synopsis was written by Leonard Bernstein, the composer of the ballet's score. He was 25 at the time (the same age as Robbins) and an assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic. Just a few months earlier, he had made a splash as a last-minute substitution for Bruno Walter at a Philharmonic concert, jump-starting his career.

Above: photo from Haglund's Heel

The ballet featured John Kriza, Harold Lang and Jerome Robbins himself as the three sailors, Muriel Bentley, Janet Reed, and Shirley Ecki as the girls, and Rex Cooper as the seen-it-all bartender. The great critic Edwin Denby observed that the ballet:

was so big a hit that the young participants all looked a little dazed as they took their bows. But besides being a smash hit, Fancy Free is a very remarkable comedy piece. ... Its pantomime and its dances are witty, exuberant, and at every moment they feel natural.

Above: Jerome Robbins, Michael Kidd, John Kriza, and Shirley Eckl performing the ballet in London Photo: Baron via MPR News

Over the years, Fancy Free has entered the repertory of countless ballet companies in the U.S. and abroad. It was so popular that Robbins and Bernstein were persuaded to turn it into a Broadway musical: On the Town. It debuted on December 28 of the same year, which seems astonishing considering how long it takes to create contemporary musicals. Bernstein wrote the music, Betty Comden and Adolph Green the book and lyrics, and Robbins choreographed it—the first in a long line of musical theater triumphs for him. Confidence in the show was so high that MGM bought the film rights before it opened, a common practice now, but not then. It was the first film set in the city to be actually filmed there (in part) instead of on a Hollywood soundstage.

#vintage New York #1940s #Fancy Free #Jerome Robbins #ballet #Leonard Bernstein #American ballet #John Kriza #Harold Lang #Muriel Bentley #Janet Reed #Shirley Eckl

[broadwaydivastournament]

Broadway Divas Tournament: 2A

Donna Murphy (1959) “DONNA MURPHY (Anna) received the 1996 Tony Award, as well as Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle nominations for her performance in The King and I. She also received the 1994 Tony and Drama Desk Awards for her portrayal of Fosca in Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Passion. Last summer she was featured as Dorothy Trowbridge in Mr. Lapine’s Twelve Dreams at Lincoln Center (Drama Desk nomination). Other Broadway Credits include: Edwin Drood in The Mystery of Edwin Drood, The Human Comedy, and They’re Playing Our Song. Off-B’way: The Whore in Michael John LaChuisa’s Hello Again (Drama Desk nom.), Rose in Song of Singapore (Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle noms.), Hey Love; The Songs of Mary Rodgers, Privates on Parade, Showing Off, Birds of Paradise, A…My Name is Alice, Little Shop of Horrors. Regional work includes Miss Julie (McCarter), Pal Joey (Huntington), Williamstown, Portland Shage Co. and Goodspeed. She made her feature film debut in Jade, and co-stared (sp) in “Someone Had to Be Benny” for HBO. Other TV includes: Francesa Cross on Stephen Bocho’s “Murder One,” “Law & Order,” “A Table at Ciro’s” (PBS Great Performances), “Another World” and the American Playhouse Production of Passion. Ms. Murphy can be heard on the original cast recordings of Passion (Grammy Award), and Hello Again, and is featured on Leonard Bernstein’s New York on Electra/Noneshuch.” – Playbill bio from The King and I, December 1996.

Mary Beth Peil (1940) "MARY BETH PEIL (Anna Leonowens), before joining the 1982 Los Angeles production of The King and I, received national acclaim for her television portrayal of Alma Winemiller in Lee Hoiby's opera Summer and Smoke (based on the Tennessee Williams play), produced by PBS and the Chicago Opera Theatre. As a member of New York's Theatre for a New Audience she has apperaed in many productions of Shakespeare. A Graduate of Northwestern University and a First Prize winner of the Metropolitian Opera Auditions, Mary Beth has been featured in opera and musical theatre with such companies as The Metropolitan Opera National Company, the New York City Opera, the Lake George Opera and the Minnesota Opera. She has appeared as soloist with the New York Philharmonic, Honolulu Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, the New York Young Concert Artists and the Cincinnati Area Artists Series. Favorite musical theatre roles that she has performed include Rosabella in Most Happy Fella, Magnolia in Show Boat and Kate in Kiss Me, Kate." - Playbill bio from The King and I, March, 1985.

NEW PROPAGANDA AND MEDIA UNDER CUT: ALL POLLS HERE

"We have Donna Murphy as Dolly. We have Donna Murphy as Aurelia. What are we doing to get Donna Murphy in a Mame revival so she can hit the Jerry Herman trifecta? I need this woman back on a stage immediately and genuinely, I cannot tell you how much money I'd be realistically willing to shell out. And on a more personal note? What do I have to do to get Donna Murphy to look at me like she wants to devour me whole? The things I want to do to this woman... She has chemistry with every single person she crosses paths with. I need her carnally."

"Mary Beth Peil's hair deserves a Tony Award of its own. She started going grey almost twenty years ago and never looked back. A grey-haired octogenarian who's actively out here being hot and sexy and showing skin is quite possible one of the hottest things in the world. Let me reiterate: I want to fuck this old woman."

#broadwaydivastournament #broadway #broadway divas #tournament poll #musical theatre #donna murphy #mary beth peil #round 2a

[fatehbaz]

This was a world [...] of breathtaking extremes: on one end were early modern European aristocrats who decorated their salons with sugar sculptures; on the other were millions of enslaved men and women, overwhelmingly of African origin, who were overworked so mercilessly on Caribbean plantations [...].

In the late 1600s, sugar confectioneries were introduced into Siam by a [...] woman of Japanese and Portuguese descent, Marie Guyemar de Pinha [...], who married the king’s Greek prime minister. Two centuries later, a sugar planter like Leonard Wray could effortlessly move between the Malay Peninsula, Natal (in today’s South Africa), and the American South, receiving land in Algeria from Napoleon III and conducting sugar experiments under the auspices of the former governor of South Carolina. Bosma traces the rise of a sugar bourgeoisie in places like Java, the Caribbean, Louisiana, and Brazil that was, by its very definition, transnational. Sugar, after all, constantly required new commodity frontiers as cane monoculture ravaged the soil and turned lush tropical forests into wastelands. Politics and war accelerated this scramble for new frontiers. [After the formal legal abolition of chattel slavery in British territories] [a] man like John Gladstone -- father of British prime minister William -- had to quickly pull up stakes in Demerara (in today’s Guyana) and Jamaica in 1840 and try his luck in deltaic Bengal instead. [...]

Of course, many of those transnational connections were sealed through acts of unspeakable brutality. [...] The workings of the slave-sugar economy [...] guaranteed that the enslaved were reduced to the absolute wretched of the earth [...]. Slaves were shuttled across the Atlantic’s western littoral as new sugar frontiers developed and as European colonies were gained [...]. Saint-Domingue sugar workers might have cast away their chains during the Haitian Revolution, but French planters simply carried those chains across the Windward Passage to Cuba, where they got to work establishing a new, brutal sugar frontier powered by yet more slaves. Equally unsettling, [...] the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1834 was followed [...] by the resumption of British mass imports of slave-grown sugar from areas beyond London’s imperial control. Sugar from Brazil and Cuba was simply cheaper, and business and consumer interests trumped any questions of morality. [...] [W]ith massive refinery complexes lining the waterfronts of American and European cities, the commodity remained utterly reliant on slavery, coerced labor, and - in places like Java, where the Dutch designed a system of forced cultivation - suppressed land rights. [...] [G]rossly impoverished workers were cheaper and more easily dispensable. [...] Sugar was only profitable when churned out in mass quantities: consequently, sugar industrialists deliberately overproduced, which artificially drove down prices (and workers’ wages).

---

All text above by: Dinyar Patel. ‘Sugar, Slavery, and Capitalism: On Ulbe Bosma’s “The World of Sugar”’. Published online by LA Review of Books. 9 May 2023. [Some paragraph breaks and contractions added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]

#abolition #ecology #imperial #colonial

[two-of-them-tournament]

TWO OF THEM TOURNAMENT ROUND 1

Begins March 15 at noon EST. There will be 8 polls per day. Matchups under the cut.

DAY ONE

Troy Barnes & Abed Nadir (Community) VS Booster Gold & Ted Kord (DC Comics) WINNER: Troy & Abed!

Ingo & Emmet (Pokemon) VS Newton Geiszler & Hermann Gottlieb (Pacific Rim) WINNER: Ingo & Emmet!

Kagamine Rin & Len (Vocaloid) VS Sherlock Holmes & John Watson (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes) WINNER: Holmes & Watson!

Sans & Papyrus (Undertale) VS Sun Wukong & Six-eared Macaque (LEGO Monkie Kid) WINNER: Sans & Papyrus!

Breekon & Hope (Magnus Archives) VS Ace Trappola & Deuce Spade (Twisted Wonderland) WINNER: Breekon & Hope!

Dipper & Mabel Pines (Gravity Falls) VS Achilles & Patroclus (Greek mythology) WINNER: Dipper & Mabel!

Mario & Luigi (Super Mario Bros) VS Ash Ketchum & Pikachu (Pokemon) WINNER: Mario & Luigi!

Jessie & James (Pokemon) VS Timon & Pumbaa (The Lion King) WINNER: Jessie & James!

DAY TWO

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern (Hamlet) VS Benson Mekler & Dave (Kipo) WINNER: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern!

Pippin Took & Merry Brandybuck (Lord of the Rings) VS Benton Fraser & Ray Kowalski (Due South) WINNER: Merry & Pippin!

Frodo Baggins & Samwise Gamgee (Lord of the Rings) VS Sailor Uranus & Sailor Neptune (Sailor Moon) WINNER: Frodo & Sam!

Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens) VS Finn & Jake (Adventure Time) WINNER: Finn & Jake!

Statler & Waldorf (The Muppet Show) VS Strong Bad & The Cheat (Homestar Runner) WINNER: Statler & Waldorf!

Bert & Ernie (Sesame Street) VS Vex'ahlia & Vax'ildan (Critical Role) WINNER: Bert & Ernie!

Sonic & Tails (Sonic the Hedgehog) VS Jadzia Dax (Star Trek) WINNER: Sonic & Tails!

Phineas & Ferb VS Carl Carlson & Lenny Leonard (The Simpsons) WINNER: Phineas & Ferb!

DAY THREE

Sam & Max VS Will Graham & Hannibal Lecter (NBC Hannibal) WINNER: Sam & Max!

Spongebob & Patrick (Spongebob Squarepants) VS Eddie Brock & Venom (Marvel Comics) WINNER: Spongebob & Patrick!

Wallace & Gromit VS The 10th Doctor & Donna Noble (Doctor Who) WINNER: Wallace & Gromit!

Geordi LaForge & Data (Star Trek) VS Frog & Toad WINNER: Frog & Toad!

Spock & Jim Kirk (Star Trek) VS Wug Test (Linguistics) WINNER: Spock & Kirk!

Bill S. Preston & Theodore Logan (Bill and Ted) VS Fireboy & Watergirl WINNER: Bill & Ted!

Nadja of Antipaxos & Laszlo Cravensworth (What We Do in the Shadows) VS Heinz Doofenshmirtz & Perry the Platypus (Phineas and Ferb) WINNER: Doofenshmirtz & Perry!

Nastya Rasputina & The Aurora (The Mechanisms) VS Harry DuBois & Kim Kitsuragi (Disco Elysium) WINNER: Harry & Kim!

DAY FOUR

Pinky & The Brain (Animaniacs) VS Scooby & Shaggy (Scooby-Doo) WINNER: Scooby & Shaggy!

Nico Di Angelo & Will Solace (Percy Jackson) VS Timmy & Tommy (Animal Crossing) WINNER: Timmy & Tommy!

Calvin & Hobbes VS Bunsen & Beaker (The Muppet Show) WINNER: Calvin & Hobbes!

Kris & Susie (Deltarune) VS Mercutio & Benvolio (Romeo and Juliet) WINNER: Kris & Susie!

Wirt & Greg (Over the Garden Wall) VS R2-D2 & C-3PO (Star Wars) WINNER: R2-D2 & C-3PO!

Mac McDonald & Charlie Kelly (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) VS Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde WINNER: Mac & Charlie!

Phoenix Wright & Maya Fey (Ace Attorney) VS John Doe & Arthur Lester (Malevolent) WINNER: Phoenix & Maya!

Legolas Greenleaf & Gimli (Lord of the Rings) VS Jedediah Smith & Gaius Octavius (Night at the Museum) WINNER: Legolas & Gimli!

RECAP

#two of them tournament #tott23

[brokehorrorfan]

Rope, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Torn Curtain, Topaz, and Frenzy will be released on 4K Ultra HD (with Blu-ray and Digital) on October 31 via Universal. They’ll be available both individually and in The Alfred Hitchcock Classics Collection: Volume 3 box set.

Rope is a 1948 thriller written by Arthur Laurents, based on the 1929 play by Patrick Hamilton. James Stewart, John Dall, and Farley Granger star.

The Man Who Knew Too Much is a 1956 thriller written by John Michael Hayes. James Stewart and Doris Day star.

Torn Curtain is a 1966 spy thriller written by Brian Moore. Paul Newman and Julie Andrews star.

Topaz is a 1969 spy thriller written by Samuel A. Taylor, based on the 1967 novel by Leon Uris. Frederick Stafford, Dany Robin, and John Forsythe star.

Frenzy is a 1972 thriller written by Anthony Shaffer, based on a 1966 novel by Arthur La Bern. Jon Finch, Alec McCowen, and Barry Foster star.

The films have each been restored in 4K and presented with HDR. Special features are listed below, where you can also see the artwork for the standalone releases.

Rope special features:

Rope Unleashed

Production photographs

Theatrical trailer

Two friends (Farley Granger and John Dall) strangle a classmate for intellectual thrills and then proceed to throw a party for the victim's family and friends—with the body stuffed inside the trunk they use for a buffet table. As the killers turn the conversation to committing the "perfect murder," their former teacher (James Stewart) becomes increasingly suspicious that his students have turned his intellectual theories into brutal reality.

The Man Who Knew Too Much special features:

The Making of The Man Who Knew Too Much

Saving The Man Who Knew Too Much

Production photographs

Theatrical trailer

Re-release trailer

Original multi-directional audio

While vacationing in Morocco, Ben and Jo McKenna (James Stewart and Doris Day) are suddenly immersed in a dangerous situation after a French spy dies in Ben's arms. Discovering that their son has been kidnapped and taken to England, the McKennas are caught up in a nightmare of espionage, assassinations and terror. Soon, all of their lives hang in the balance as they draw closer to the truth that leads to a chilling climax in London's famous Royal Albert Hall.

Torn Curtain special features:

Torn Curtain Rising

Scenes scored by Bernard Herrmann

Production photographs

Theatrical trailer

World-famous scientist Michael Armstrong (Paul Newman) and his fiancée/assistant, Sarah Sherman (Julie Andrews), travel to Copenhagen for a physics conference. When Sarah mistakenly intercepts a message meant for Armstrong, she believes that he is secretly defecting to East Germany. As Armstrong goes undercover to learn top-secret information, the couple find themselves running for their lives from the enemy agents.

Topaz special features:

Topaz Appreciation by film critic Leonard Maltin

Alternate endings

Storyboards: The Mendozas

Production photographs

Theatrical trailer

Responding to rumors of Russian missiles and a NATO spy called Topaz, an American CIA agent (John Forsythe) hires French operative Devereaux (Frederick Stafford) to investigate in Cuba. In Havana, Devereaux's investigation becomes dangerous, leaving behind a wake of shaken governments, murder, betrayal and suicide.

Frenzy special features:

The Story of Frenzy

Production photographs

Theatrical trailer

A serial criminal known as the "Necktie Murderer" has the police on red alert and the trail is leading to an innocent man who must now elude the law and prove his innocence by finding the real murderer.

Pre-order The Alfred Hitchcock Classics Collection: Volume 3.

#alfred hitchcock #the man who knew too much #rope #torn curtain #topaz #frenzy #dvd #gift #james stewart #paul newman #julie andrews #doris day #farley granger #john dall #john forsythe

[byneddiedingo]

Carey Mulligan and Bradley Cooper in Maestro (Bradley Cooper, 2023)

Cast: Bradley Cooper, Carey Mulligan, Matt Bomer, Gideon Glick, Maya Hawke, Sarah Silverman, Vincenzo Amato, Michael Urie, Greg Hildreth, Brian Klugman, Nick Blaemire, Mallory Portnoy, Yasen Peyakov, Zachary Booth, Miriam Shor, Alexa Swinton. Screenplay: Bradley Cooper, Josh Singer. Cinematography: Matthew Libatique. Production design: Kevin Thompson. Film editing: Michelle Tesoro. Music: Leonard Bernstein. 

The Aussies call it "tall poppy syndrome." It's that tendency to try to undermine or underestimate the achievement of anyone who excels. And I think we saw it directed at Bradley Cooper when the first big wave of negative publicity came out from a critic from the Hollywood Reporter who saw the trailer for Maestro and called the prosthetic nose Cooper wore to play Leonard Bernstein "ethnic cosplay." The word "Jewface," analogous to blackface and "yellowface," labels for white performers pretending to be Black or Asian, was tossed about, as if Cooper were somehow guilty of antisemitism, or even depriving a Jewish actor of the role. Defenders came to the fray, including Bernstein's family, who indicated their approval of Cooper's choice, and others who pointed out that Cooper wasn't playing a negative stereotype, or even a character like Shylock or Fagin, but an authentic musical genius. But the damage was done, and the controversy continues to be a kind of scrim through which we watch and assess the film. I think much of it stems from the fact that Cooper is one of the most exceptional talents of our time, recognized for excellence as an actor, director, and screenwriter  -- a tall poppy indeed. He has a total of nine Academy Award nominations in all three of those fields plus producing -- for Todd Phillips's Joker (2019) and Guillermo del Toro's Nightmare Alley (2022). He won a BAFTA for the music of A Star Is Born (2018), for which he wrote and sang several songs, and for which he also won two Grammys. He was nominated for a Tony in 2015 for his performance on Broadway in The Elephant Man. (One of the critics of the prosthetic nose observed that he wore no disfiguring makeup for the role of John Merrick, suggesting that if he's that good an actor, he should have played the role of Bernstein without the help of makeup.) All of this is preface to saying that Maestro is an exceptional film that only adds luster to an already distinguished career. It has been labeled a biopic, which is inadequate. Biographical films are usually distanced from their subjects, dramatizations of events in a career. Maestro is more intimate than that, a portrait of a man and a marriage. Cooper goes beyond mimicry of Bernstein in a serious effort to suggest the social and sexual and artistic tensions seething within the man. If I have to voice a criticism it's that he doesn't quite bring it off -- it's a little too much for any actor or screenwriter to achieve. But Cooper shows us the depths even if he doesn't plumb them. He wisely lets us have our own thoughts about something even Bernstein probably couldn't define about his sexuality: whether he was gay or bisexual, or whether that question is stupid and irrelevant. Carey Mulligan's performance as his wife, Felicia, brittle and burning, is a perfect match for Cooper's. If they don't have the chemistry that Cooper had with Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook (2012) or Lady Gaga in A Star Is Born, that's partly the point: The marriage of Lenny and Felicia was one of unresolved tension. Hence the epigraph for the film: "A work of art does not answer questions, if provokes them; and its essential meaning is in the tension between the contradictory answers." I have the feeling that Maestro will be remembered and studied for years to come.

#Maestro #Bradley Cooper #Carey Mulligan

[filmnoirfoundation]

Next up for for FNF prez Eddie Muller at the Turner Classic Movies Film Festival today. He'll introduce Elia Kazan's EAST OF EDEN (1955), 11:45 am, TCL Chinese Theatres, House 1.

#TCMFF film notes:

When director Elia Kazan realized Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift were too old to play the brothers in his adaptation of John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, he went looking for new talent. Boy, did he find it! In his first starring role (and the only one of his major films released during his lifetime), James Dean burns up the screen with inner turmoil. He’s cast as Cal, the tortured Cain to Richard Davalos’s Abel and Raymond Massey’s Adam in coastal California on the eve of World War I. Rejection dominates Dean’s performance as he strives to win his father’s love, finds himself drawn to his brother’s girlfriend (Julie Harris), and discovers his mother (Jo Van Fleet) is running a brothel in a nearby town.

Working with cinematographer Ted McCord, Kazan reflected Cal’s emotional turmoil in his creative use of the widescreen image. This was Kazan’s first film shot in color and CinemaScope, and he frequently tilts the camera to intensify a scene’s emotional impact. He also worked with composer Leonard Rosenman to make the score mirror Cal’s inner life. At the time, many reviewers lauded Kazan’s move into widescreen while complaining that Dean’s performance was just an imitation of early Brando. More recent critics have hailed the film as Kazan’s and Dean’s best. Van Fleet won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress with her film debut, with additional nominations going to Kazan, Dean, and Paul Osborn’s adapted screenplay.

d. Elia Kazan, 118 minutes, DCP

World premiere restoration courtesy of Warner Bros. Classics

Restored by Warner Bros. in collaboration with the Film Foundation

#east of eden #tcmff #eddie muller #tcl chinese theatre #james dean #julie harris #eliz kazan

[maaarine]

Bibliography: articles posted on this blog in 2023

Posted in January

To grasp how serotonin works on the brain, look to the gut (James M Shine, Psyche, Jan 03 2023)

Thousands of records shattered in historic winter warm spell in Europe (Ian Livingston, The Washington Post, Jan 02 2023)

“Il faut que tu sois belle maintenant” : en Égypte, des femmes libérées du voile restent prisonnières des diktats (Aliaa Talaat, Al-Manassa via Courrier International, 20 nov 2022)

Mystery of why Roman buildings have survived so long has been unraveled, scientists say (Katie Hunt, CNN, Jan 06 2023)

Colombia’s surrogacy market: Buying a baby for $4,000 (Lucía Franco, El País, Jan 04 2023)

How to spot an eating disorder (Phillip Aouad & Sarah Maguire, Psyche, Jan 11 2023)

UAE sparks furious backlash by appointing Abu Dhabi oil chief as president of COP28 climate summit (Sam Meredith, CNBC, Jan 12 2023)

Don’t tell me that David Carrick’s crimes were ‘unbelievable’. The problem is victims aren’t believed (Marina Hyde, The Guardian, Jan 17 2023)

Baromètre Sexisme 2023 : "La situation est alarmante", estime le Haut Conseil à l'Égalité (Juliette Geay, Radio France, 23 janvier 2023)

—

Posted in February

Spain approves menstrual leave, teen abortion and trans laws (NPR, Feb 16 2023)

Are Men the Overlooked Reason for the Fertility Decline? (Jessica Grose, The New York Times, Feb 15 2023)

American teenage girls are experiencing high levels of emotional distress. Why? (Moira Donegan, The Guardian, Feb 16 2023)

Figures that lay bare the shocking scale of toxic influencer Andrew Tate’s reach among young men (Maya Oppenheim, The Independent, Feb 17 2023)

Why psychological research on child sex offenders is important (Meetali Devgun, Psyche, Feb 22 2023)

Derrière les chiffres des féminicides, des visages et un continuum de violences contre les femmes (Fanny Declercq, Le Soir, 27 fév 2023)

—

Posted in March

English is not normal (John McWhorter, Aeon, Nov 13 2015)

Are Iranian schoolgirls being poisoned by toxic gas? (BBC News, March 03 2023)

‘Why do we need a supermodel?’: Backlash after Fifa makes Adriana Lima Women’s World Cup ambassador (Henry Belot, The Guardian, March 02 2023)

New Human Metabolism Research Upends Conventional Wisdom about How We Burn Calories (Herman Pontzer, Scientific American, Jan 01 2023)

Polish woman found guilty of aiding an abortion in landmark trial (Harriet Barber, The Telegraph, March 14 2023)

How Diet Builds Better Bones: Surprising Findings on Vitamin D, Coffee, and More (Claudia Wallis, Scientific American, Jan 01 2023)

Met police found to be institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic (Vikram Dodd, The Guardian, March 21 2023)

Chinese Dating App Does the Swiping for Singles to Find Love (Nikki Main, Gizmodo, March 21 2023)

Aphantasia can be a gift to philosophers and critics like me (Mette Leonard Høeg, Psyche, March 20 2023)

—

Posted in April

Facts Don’t Change Minds – Social Networks, Group Dialogue, and Stories Do (Anne Toomey, The LSE Impact Blog, Jan 24 2023)

Uganda’s failure to jail child rapists as teen pregnancies soar (Tamasin Ford, BBC News, April 17 2023)

Italy risks ‘ethnic replacement’ because of low birth rate and high immigration, says minister (Nick Squires, The Telegraph, April 19 2023)

Putin, Trump, Ukraine: how Timothy Snyder became the leading interpreter of our dark times (Robert P Baird, The Guardian, March 30 2023)

India overtakes China to become world’s most populous country (Hannah Ellis-Petersen, The Guardian, April 24 2023)

—

Posted in May

Des crèches ferment toutes les semaines, « et ce n’est pas près de s’arrêter » (Le Soir, 5 mai 2023)

People in comas showed ‘conscious-like’ brain activity as they died, study says (Hannah Devlin, The Guardian, May 01 2023)

Chinese woman appeals in battle for right to freeze her eggs (The Guardian, May 09 2023)

Women CEOs: Why companies in crisis hire minorities - and then fire them (The Guardian, DG McCullough, Aug 08 2014)

Glass cliffs: firms appoint female executives in times of crisis as a signal of change to investors (Max Reinwald and Johannes Zaia and Florian Kunze, LSE Business Review, Aug 19 2022)

—

Posted in June

Afghan women in mental health crisis over bleak future (Yogita Limaye, BBC News, June 05 2023)

Support Of Amber Heard Alongside French Feminists & Cinema Figures (Melanie Goodfellow, Deadline, June 05 2023)

Why is Japan redefining rape? (Tessa Wong & Sakiko Shiraishi, BBC News, June 07 2023)

Catching the men who sell subway groping videos (Zhaoyin Feng & Aliaume Leroy & Shanshan Chen, BBC News, June 08 2023)

Netherlands to provide free sun cream to tackle record skin cancer levels (Kate Connolly, The Guardian, June 12 2023)

The Cause of Depression Is Probably Not What You Think (Joanna Thompson, Quanta Magazine, Jan 26 2023)

—

Posted in July

‘Farsighted impulsivity’ and the new psychology of self-control (Adam Bulley, Psyche, Feb 03 2021)

Can a perfectionist personality put you at risk of migraines? (Shayla Love, Psyche, July 25 2023)

—

Posted in August

How Loneliness Reshapes the Brain (Marta Zaraska, Quanta Magazine, Feb 28 2023)

Why religious belief provides a real buffer against suicide risk (David H Rosmarin, Psyche, Aug 07 2023)

—

Posted in September

What Are Dreams For? (Amanda Gefter, The New Yorker, Aug 31 2023)

Rape Cases Seize Italy’s Attention and Expose Cultural Rifts (Gaia Pianigiani, The New York Times, Sep 03 2023)

Councils in England in crisis as Birmingham ‘declares itself bankrupt’ (Heather Stewart and Jessica Murray, The Guardian, Sep 05 2023)

Nearly one in three female NHS surgeons have been sexually assaulted, survey suggests (Jamie Grierson, The Guardian, Sep 12 2023)

Domination and Objectification: Men’s Motivation for Dominance Over Women Affects Their Tendency to Sexually Objectify Women (Orly Bareket and Nurit Shnabel, Sep 09 2019)

In Spain, dozens of girls are reporting AI-generated nude photos of them being circulated at school: ‘My heart skipped a beat’ (Manuel Viejo, El País, Sep 18 2023)

When the human tendency to detect patterns goes too far (Shayla Love, Psyche, Sep 19 2023)

—

Posted in October

My Brain Doesn’t Picture Things (Marco Giancotti, Nautilus, Oct 04 2023)

“Inverse vaccine” shows potential to treat multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune diseases (Sarah C.P. Williams, The University of Chicago, Sep 11 2023)

Poland election: exit polls point to Law and Justice defeat as Tusk hails ‘rebirth’ (Shaun Walker, The Guardian, Oct 16 2023)

—

Posted in November

What I have learned from my suicidal patients (Gavin Francis, The Guardian, Nov 22 2019)

Did natural selection make the Dutch the tallest people on the planet? (Martin Enserink, Science, Apr 07 2015)

Tumblr Is Always Dying (Elizabeth Minkel, Wired, Nov 14 2023)

How accurate is the new Napoleon film? Sorting fact from fiction (Andrew Roberts, The Sunday Times, Nov 19 2023)

Far-right party set to win most seats in Dutch elections, exit polls show (Jon Henley and Pjotr Sauer and Senay Boztas, The Guardian, Nov 22 2023)

Climate change: Rise in Google searches around ‘anxiety’ (Lucy Gilder, BBC, Nov 22 2023)

—

Posted in December

The sexual assault of sleeping women: the hidden, horrifying rape crisis in our bedrooms (Anna Moore, The Guardian, June 15 2021)

Afghanistan: Taliban sends abused women to prison - UN (Nicholas Yong, BBC News, Dec 15 2023)

Longitudinal Associations Between Parenting and Child Big Five Personality Traits (University of California Press, Nov 18 2021)

Scientists Pinpoint Cause of Severe Morning Sickness (Azeen Ghorayshi, The New York Times, Dec 13 2023)

#article #articleindex #2023

[samnyangie]

I wanted to share this before the pride month ends! They’re not written by me, this is the original post

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Robert Sean Leonard and LGBTQ+

On Stage

The Invention of Love by Tom Stoppard. Broadway, 2001.

RSL won a Tony and Outer Critics Circle Award for his portrayal of gay poet and scholar A.E. Housman, who struggles with his feelings towards his best friend and the love of his life, Moses Jackson.

The Violet Hour by Richard Greenberg. Broadway, 2004.

RSL played John Pace Seavering, an ostensibly straight character who nonetheless shares kisses with another man (played by future House guest star Scott Foley).

Fifth of July by Lanford Wilson. Broadway, 2003 (also Los Angeles).

RSL played a gay disabled Vietnam veteran, Ken Talley, living with his boyfriend in his childhood home and dealing with visiting relatives and friends over a summer weekend.

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams. Baltimore (Center Stage), 1997.

RSL played Tom, the fictional alter-ego of Williams (who was gay) in this autobiographical play about his family. Read an interview with RSL about Tennessee Williams.

The Shadow Box by Michael Cristofer. Benefit reading, 1994.

RSL played Mark, the young lover and caretaker of Brian (Christopher Reeve), a gay man dying from an unnamed disease assumed to be cancer. The performance of this 1977 Pulitzer Prize winning play was held to benefit a high school drama teacher in Tuscon, Arizona, who was fired for attempting to stage it due to its homosexual themes.

Into the Woods by James Lavine and Stephen Sondheim. Broadway workshop, 1987.

RSL played Jack (of Jack & the Beanstalk fame) in this musical about fairy tales. No expressly gay themes, but composed by openly gay LGBT icon Stephen Sondheim.

Breaking the Code by Hugh Whitemore. Broadway, 1987-1988.

A biographical play based on the life of Alan Turing (played by Sir Derek Jacobi), so-called father of the computer - a brilliant young man who, during WWII, helped to break the German submarine Enigma code. The play deals with his personality, his love of mathematics and also his homosexuality, for which he spent some time in prison. RSL played Christopher Morcom, a schoolmate who was Turing's first love and whose death, at the age of 17, was to leave a permanent mark on Turing's character. Description from this site. Read the thoughts of Andrew Hodges, on whose book the play was based.

Coming of Age in Soho by Albert Innaurato. The Public Theater, circa 1985.

The play concerns a writer named Bartholomew "Beatrice" Dante, who has fled to Soho to escape his wife of fourteen years and to come to terms with his art and his homosexuality. RSL understudied the role of Puer, an "astonishingly precocious teenager" who informs Beatrice that he is his son by a German terrorist with whom Beatrice had a brief but intense fling.

On Film

A Glimpse of Hell, directed by Mikael Salomon.

A 2001 cable movie which originally aired on FX, based on a 1989 incident that occurred aboard the USS Iowa when an explosion killed 47 sailors. RSL plays Dan Meyer, a Naval lieutenant who questions the Navy's official findings, which blamed the event on a homosexual relationship between two of the sailors.

In the Gloaming, directed by Christopher Reeve.

A 1997 cable movie which originally aired on HBO. RSL plays Danny, a young gay man dying of AIDS who returns home to be in his mother's care (played by Glenn Close). The DVD release date is unknown, but VHS copies are still available.

Books

The Short History of a Prince by Jane Hamilton, 1999.

RSL narrates this novel about the family struggles and coming of age of Walter McCloud, a gay teenager in the Midwest. The audiobook is out of print but you can still buy the novel.

Other

Auditioned for a role in "To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar"

“Douglas Carter Beane wrote the screenplay for “To Wong Foo,” and recalled all the actors’ auditions for the film. “John Cusack looked just like his sister Joan. Robert Sean Leonard was stunningly beautiful, Audrey Hepburn. James Spader—also beautiful. Willem Dafoe looked the way Mary Tyler Moore does now—the Joker’s sister, with that mouth. John Turturro—not pretty.”“

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+I want to add, to my knowledge he’s listed as one of the actors funding broadway support organisation including AIDS/HIV

You can see he’s listed in this link

#robert sean leonard #rsl #lgbtq #queer #pride month #theatre #film #broadway

[skippyv20]

Spare ghostwriter

J R Moehringer’s 7,000-word whinge suggests Harry’s ghostwriter is as thin-skinned as the prickly prince himself

Saved from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12078563/J-R-Moehringers-7-000-word-whinge-suggests-Harrys-ghostwriter-skinned-prince.html12 May 2023 21:44:49 UTC www.dailymail.co.ukFriday, May 12th 2023 10PM J R Moehringer’s 7,000-word whinge suggests Harry’s ghostwriter is as thin-skinned as the prickly prince himself!J.R. Moehringer was Pulitzer Prize-winning ghost writer of Prince Harry’s bookHe tweeted words which cryptically hinted at ‘inadvertent mistakes’ in memoir By RICHARD KAY IN LONDON and TOM LEONARD IN NEW YORKPUBLISHED: 22:09 BST, 12 May 2023 | UPDATED: 22:15 BST, 12 May 2023e-mailBack in January when Prince Harry’s misery memoir began flying off the shelves, smashing all publishing sales records, one thing rapidly became clear: the lofty promise on the jacket of 'insight, revelation, self-examination and hard-won wisdom’ risked being undermined by the book’s litany of howlers and historical errors.Perhaps spotting the danger of this narrative, Harry’s Pulitzer Prize-winning ghost writer, John Moehringer — better known by his pen name J.R. Moehringer — tweeted some words from the American essayist Mary Karr, which cryptically hinted at 'inadvertent mistakes’ in memories and memoir.'The line between memory and fact is blurry, between interpretation and fact,’ he wrote.For good measure, Moehringer shared a quote from Harry himself: 'My memory is my memory, it does what it does, gathers and curates what it sees fit, and there’s just as much truth in what I remember and how I remember it as there is in so-called objective facts.’With that, the ghostwriter — who was reportedly paid around £800,000 for his work — and Harry settled back as the sales for Spare went off the charts: 3.2 million in the first week alone.Harry’s Pulitzer Prize-winning ghost writer, John Moehringer ¿ better known by his pen name J.R. MoehringerBut there was no attempt to address the mistakes and, amid all the bile Harry poured over the Royal Family, the blunders went unchallenged.These discrepancies varied from the frivolous — he claimed that the gift his late mother had bought him for his 13th birthday in 1997 was an Xbox when, in fact, the Microsoft games console was not released until 2001 — to the more serious.His assertion that the last thing Princess Diana 'saw on this Earth was a flashbulb’ and the last sound she heard was 'a click’, goes to the heart of Harry’s hatred of the Press. While the actions of the paparazzi at the scene of the princess’s crash in Paris may have been morally indefensible, they did not provide her last sights and sounds.Paramedics who took her to hospital told the inquest years later that they spoke to Diana. 'She was conscious; she could speak to me,’ said one.Four months on from publication and it seems the criticism has been neither forgotten nor forgiven — at least not by Harry’s ghostwriter.In an overlong and utterly self-serving article for The New Yorker magazine this week, Moehringer complained that within days of Spare’s publication, an 'amorphous campaign’ was launched which claimed that his 'rigorously fact-checked’ book was riddled with inaccuracies.That this article should appear just days after the Coronation and Harry’s 28-hour flying visit to Britain — which left questions over his royal future — seems an extraordinary coincidence.Moehringer complained that within days of Spare’s publication, an 'amorphous campaign’ was launched which claimed that his 'rigorously fact-checked’ book was riddled with inaccuraciesMoehringer complained that within days of Spare’s publication, an 'amorphous campaign’ was launched which claimed that his 'rigorously fact-checked’ book was riddled with inaccuracies

Many assumed Harry must have been joking when he described in the book how Moehringer 'spoke to me so often and with such deep conviction about the beauty (and sacred obligation) of memoir’.After reading his collaborator’s pompous exposition on what he calls the 'art’ of ghostwriting and the trials and tribulations of working with the prince, it’s clear he may have been entirely serious.Hell hath no fury like a 'proper’ American writer scorned and Moehringer lets rip at his critics, particularly those in Britain who didn’t spare Spare their mockery.Without naming him, he singles out a review by the novelist Andrew O'Hagan in the London Review Of Books, whose piece, headlined 'Off His Royal T**s’, accused the American writer of showing off.'Prince Harry has never read a book in his life, so his ghostwriter, J.R. Moehringer, invites a round of applause every time he goes all Sartre or Faulkner,’ wrote O'Hagan, who has his own experience of the genre, having ghosted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s memoir.Moehringer hit back by describing a long essay of O'Hagan’s on his methodology for ghostwriting as sounding 'like Elon Musk on mushrooms — on Mars’.O'Hagan was one of many reviewers who ensured that, while Spare was a financial triumph, it was less successful in the Sussexes’ battle for hearts and minds.The book was the catalyst for many people, who had hitherto been on their side, to begin to break ranks. Worryingly for the Sussexes, this phenomenon was particularly observable in the U.S., the market so crucial to the California-based couple’s ambitions.Review after review accused Harry of going too far, obsessing over petty grievances and — hypocritically — offering up spiteful and detailed revelations about other members of the Royal Family.U.S. newspapers that had previously accepted every claim which came out of the Sussexes’ mouths changed tack and started pointing out the cracks in their arguments.'At once emotional and embittered, the royal memoir is mired in a paradox: drawing endless attention in an effort to renounce fame,’ said the New York Times, previously one of the couple’s chief media cheerleaders.Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, in South Africa in 2019Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, in South Africa in 2019'The prince claims to have a spotty memory … but doesn’t appear to have forgotten a single line ever printed about him and his wife, and the last section of his tell-all degenerates into a tiresome back-and-forth about who’s leaking what and why,’ wrote critic Alexandra Jacobs.Doubtless to Moehringer’s horror, she also attacked the writing: 'Like its author, Spare is all over the map — emotionally as well as physically. He does not, in other words, keep it tight.’The San Francisco Chronicle crowned Harry the 'King of TMI’ (Too Much Information) and compared him to Christina Crawford, whose life has come to be defined by her shocking memoir — Mommie Dearest — about her abusive relationship with her adoptive mother, the film star Joan Crawford.New York Magazine, to which Meghan gave a rare interview, noted: 'Throughout Harry and Meghan’s post-royal productions, their lack of self-awareness can make even their legitimate complaints seem grating. Spare is no different.’The verdict of the sober Wall Street Journal must have particularly stung.The book, it declared, was a 'slog’, adding: 'What may gall the reader most is the hypocrisy. Harry claims to want privacy, but there he is putting it all out there for Oprah …’Elsewhere, the National Review described Spare as 'a betrayal of family, of country, and above all of self’, while misgivings about the book extended to less well-known media outlets. The Mississippi Clarion Ledger’s reviewer wrote: 'Reading Spare confirms long-held suggestions that the Windsors have not been known for impressive intellect and that Harry is as imprudent as his mother.’Now Moehringer, who grandiosely argues that ghostwriting is 'a vital public service’, is ignoring his own imperative that 'ghostwriters don’t speak’. And his rage is palpable.Queen Elizabeth’s corgis were not descended from corgis that belonged to Victoria. While Victoria had 100 dogs of 28 different breeds, none of them was a corgiQueen Elizabeth’s corgis were not descended from corgis that belonged to Victoria. While Victoria had 100 dogs of 28 different breeds, none of them was a corgi'I can’t think of anything that rankles quite like being called sloppy by people who routinely trample facts in pursuit of their royal prey, and this now happened every few minutes to Harry and, by extension, to me,’ he thunders in his 7,000-word article.Yet of all the errors he could have addressed, he chose one of the least consequential. 'In one section of the book, for instance,’ he writes, 'Harry reveals that he used to live for the yearly sales at TK Maxx, the discount clothing chain.'Not so fast, said the monarchists at TK Maxx corporate, who rushed out a statement declaring that TK Maxx never had sales — just great savings all the time.’He snidely wonders: 'Surely TK Maxx’s effort to discredit Harry’s memoir was unrelated to its long-standing partnership with Prince (sic) Charles and his charitable trust.’ (The company has supported The Prince’s Trust since 2013 through its Get Into and Achieve programmes, which help young people get jobs.)But Moehringer has no explanations, nor any clever asides, to explain his many other 'inadvertent mistakes’.The Queen did not consign the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to a remote grave in the Frogmore burial ground; nor does Frogmore have a 'mini-skyline of crypts and monuments’, as he claims — the headstones lie flat.Harry is not descended from Henry VI, the founder of Eton College, because the King’s only son died childless.There were other historical bloomers: Queen Victoria was not 'shot at eight times’. She was shot at three times.Queen Elizabeth’s corgis were not descended from corgis that belonged to Victoria. While Victoria had 100 dogs of 28 different breeds, none of them was a corgi.Harry is not descended from Henry VI, the founder of Eton College, because the King’s only son died childlessHarry is not descended from Henry VI, the founder of Eton College, because the King’s only son died childlessThe Royal Family did not get out of the car on the way back from Crathie kirk on the Sunday morning that Diana died to look at flowers — that actually happened four days later.Nor was Harry at school when the Queen Mother passed away in 2002. She died during the Easter holidays and he, Prince William and their father were skiing at the time in Klosters, Switzerland.The Queen was not at the Golden Jubilee Palace pop concert in 2002 when Brian May played at the beginning. She arrived just before the end. Nor did she go to the Windsor Guildhall for Charles and Camilla’s civil wedding ceremony in 2005, but she was at the service of blessing in St George’s Chapel — a significant point which was ignored by Harry — and she hosted the reception.These may be minor issues but they raise questions about the veracity of more serious points. In describing media accounts of Meghan’s first engagement with the Queen, Harry says the Press reported it as an 'unmitigated disaster’. Even the most cursory glance at the reports at the time show the opposite.Rather than an explanation, Moehringer offers this illuminating account of one of his tussles with Harry. 'Strange as it may seem, memoir isn’t about you,’ he told him. 'It’s not even the story of your life. It’s a story carved from your life, a particular series of events chosen because they have the greatest resonance for the widest range of people.’Lecture over, he tells how he became involved in the book in summer 2020, after someone texted to ask if he’d be interested.Despite having vowed to his wife that he would 'never again’ ghost-write another book — he penned tennis star Andre Agassi’s critically acclaimed 2009 memoir Open — he agreed to a chat with the Duke of Sussex out of curiosity.'I wondered what the real story was,’ he admitted. 'I wondered if we’d have any chemistry.'We did, and there was, I think, a surprising reason,’ he said. 'Princess Diana had died 23 years before our first conversation and my mother, Dorothy, had just died, and our griefs felt equally fresh.He eventually agreed to take on the project, despite initial reservations. He was concerned that Harry was unsure about how much he wanted to say and about the inevitable storm that would meet the finished product, regardless of its contents.'In retrospect, though, I think I selfishly welcomed the idea of being able to speak with someone, an expert, about that never-ending feeling of wishing you could call your mom,’ he added.Moehringer revealed that the prince initially wanted the book to be 'a rebuttal to every lie ever published about him’.At one stage they clashed over an anecdote Harry wanted to include about an army training exercise, during which there had been 'a vile dig at Princess Diana’.The writer refused and there was a tense stand-off before the prince backed down.Although he says Harry knew it would look odd to include certain anecdotes, he was convinced that when it became clear he was correcting the record, readers would understand.'He was joyful at this prospect,’ Moehringer said.He made three trips to Harry’s Montecito home, where he stayed in the guesthouse and told how Meghan was 'forever bringing trays of food and sweets’. He and Harry referred to each other as 'Dude’.Mostly they conversed on Zoom. 'In due time, no subject was off the table,’ he wrote. 'I felt honoured by his candour, and I could tell he felt astonished by it. And energised.’What a pity that candour wasn’t questioned and that energy wasn’t challenged

Thank you🐼

[blackswaneuroparedux]

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

- John Rogers

Ayn Rand is perhaps the author of the most childish adult books in existence. Rand is arguably the most overrated "philosopher" although I wouldn't even call her a philosopher. That actually requires at least some critical thinking.

As many young people do I once went on a Rand binge: Atlas Shrugged, We the Living, The Romantic Manifesto. I even read the book by her disciple Leonard Peikoff, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand.

Rand starts with existence exists, which is her axiomatic principle, the starting point from which she builds her belief system. From there she is quick to deny even the possibility of spiritual reality. Eventually she ends in a place where selfishness is a high virtue, altruism a despicable vice, and capitalism the only sane economic system.

Her philosophy is harshly categorical, and corresponds to the developmental stage of black/white either/or thinking of youth. No wonder the people I run across who take her philosophy seriously are always young, at least in their thinking.

As unsavory as these aspects of her philosophy might be, that isn’t what makes her writing bad. She herself says, “The fact that one agrees or disagrees with an artist’s philosophy is irrelevant to an esthetic appraisal of his work qua art.” With this I agree.

Rand’s fiction is a horrid business. It is endlessly didactic, so busy preaching it forgets to pay close attention to life. Her characters deliver lectures. You don’t have to look closely to see they are puppets with Rand’s own lips moving eerily under the mask, her angry eyes staring out through holes in the rubber face. The bad guys in her books are straw men called collectivism, and altruism and they speak only in bromides and Rand gleefully bats them down.

The truth is she is writing bad fiction by design.

In her Romantic Manifesto Rand says, “The greater the work of art, the more profoundly universal its theme.” So far so good. She writes, “Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist’s metaphysical value-judgments.” What exactly does that mean?

Rand believes the work should set forth the author’s vision of an ideal world, not deal with the world as it is. Art, according to Rand should deal only with what is “important,” which sounds fine, but the problem is that when, as Rand consciously does, the artist lops away parts of human existence she believes to be unimportant, we get substandard art.

The artist knows what she is out to prove and sets out to do it. No discovery for the writer, then none for the reader. Rand never lets the story itself say anything meaningful. You want to tell her to shut up already and tell the story. Or find a form more suited for argumentation, like an essay.

We come to art to find something important, no doubt. But it is in careful attention to the literal, physical details - quotidian, often smelly and unpleasant, even disgusting and scary - that we find the important thing for which the work is aiming. The artist is as surprised as everyone else to find the discovery hidden in the muck of life.

#rogers #john rogers #quote #ayn rand #jrr tolkien #lord of the rings #atlas shrugged #objectivitism #philosophy #individualism #literature

[diversifyyourliterature]

Carmen Maria Machado

From her website:

"Carmen Maria Machado is the author of the bestselling memoir In the Dream House, the graphic novel The Low, Low Woods, and the award-winning short story collection Her Body and Other Parties. She has been a finalist for the National Book Award and the winner of the Bard Fiction Prize, the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction, the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Nonfiction, the Brooklyn Public Library Literature Prize, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize. In 2018, the New York Times listed Her Body and Other Parties as a member of "The New Vanguard," one of "15 remarkable books by women that are shaping the way we read and write fiction in the 21st century.""

The first piece I read of Carmen Maria Machado was "The Husband Stitch" from her collection Her Body and Other Parties. It was beautiful, and it was heartbreaking. Machado has a way with words that leaves you transfixed and makes you feel seen.

Her website -which is gorgeous and a delight to explore- has links to her published works and where to buy them, but also many different online pieces that you can explore and read. I'm almost finished with her list of short stories now (I just finished "The Old Women Who Were Skinned" and oh my goddddd y'all I got chills!) and highly recommend them!

Her writings range from horror to fantasy, to magical realism, and do explore darker topics, so I recommend just approaching with that in mind as you explore her works.

#carmen maria machado #The Husband Stitch #author rec #booklr #queer authors #queer stories